LOGIES ARE LOCKED IN
THE Logie Awards will stay on the Gold Coast for at least the next three years after the massive success of Sunday night’s ceremony at The Star in Broadbeach.
Star Entertainment Group CEO Matt Bekier confirmed last night the awards would remain at The Star’s Broadbeach island site next year, in 2020 and 2021.
“The Logies will stay on the Gold Coast for the term of the four-year agreement,” Mr Bekier said in a statement.
HOURS after receiving Aussie TV’s greatest accolade, Gold Logie winner Grant Denyer has revealed for the first time the depths of despair to which he sank in the wake of a broken back and a prescription pain pill battle that threatened to kill him.
“It was a time where I didn’t really give a s… whether I lived or died. I felt like I had nothing to live for,” he said.
“I reckon if I didn’t have my daughter at that particular point, I might not be here.”
In late 2008, he was left with a broken back after an accident while jumping a monster truck over five cars at Dapto Showground. “I wasn’t quite sure whether I’d be able to walk again so I spent six months lying flat, heavily medicated trying to let it heal … I didn’t really cope with that emotionally or mentally,” Denyer said. “There are all sorts of traps that come with medications and warnings and no one prepares you for that — it is a hard cycle to get out of. I was just a bit broken, sad, lost.”
Denyer, now 40, realises he may have been building a dependence on the painkillers.
“I mentally wasn’t well, I was on pain medication for a long time and I probably wasn’t aware of the effects of that. I was caught in that trap and a whole whirlwind of emotions that meant I was at my lowest,” he said.
“I’d lived life flat out at out at that particular point so it pulled a handbrake on my life and I didn’t really cope with that emotionally or mentally.”
Denyer was stuck in that rut for a long, long while — and nobody but his wife Cheryl knew. But then his eldest daughter Sailor arrived.
“That is the only thing that kept me going at my worst, the fact I had someone that loved me and depended on me, and I could not let her down.”
Denyer was never diagnosed for what was clearly a bout of depression during a tumultuous period in which he left his role on Sunrise.
“I never let myself be put in a position where somebody could recognise that. I think everyone who suffers from depression does a very good job of hiding it — I thought I was in pain physically, but I think I was a bit more damaged internally than that,” he said.
“It is a bit cleansing and feels healthy to put it out there. People ask what depression looks like and probably looking at these smiley TV teeth of mine, that can be the face of depression. I am only still trying to understand it myself.”
In 2014, Denyer and his wife checked into a clinic for treatment for exhaustion — life was still not quite right. But about then Family Feud came along. Denyer paid tribute to the axed show as he accepted the Gold Logie.
“I wasn’t particularly in a very good place. I wasn’t very well. I was in a bit of a hole … and Family Feud came along and … gave me a ladder out of that hole,” he said, tearing up.
Despite Family Feud ending, Denyer is in good spirits. He and Cheryl have celebrated their eighth wedding anniversary, Sailor is now seven and two years ago they welcomed little sister Scout. LIFELINE 13 11 14
IT IS A HARD CYCLE TO GET OUT OF. I WAS JUST A BIT BROKEN, SAD, LOST. GRANT DENYER